Description:
The Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia (SPERA) recognises education as a lifelong process, and there is a need for continuing education and training to be available to rural communities. This paper examines the satisfaction levels of accounting continual professional development (CPD) when provided by a rural accounting professional body. Prior research has noted that rural accountants are disadvantaged when completing CPD because professional accounting bodies are city centric, and cost is prohibitive. Results of this study show that when CPD is locally provided this led to high levels of satisfaction. Implications for professional accounting bodies and rural accountants are discussed, as well as limitations and areas for further research.
Description:
Background: The advent of technology use in physical education is upon us. But the implications of using exergames as a substitute for traditional physical education instruction for some students raise questions. Although exergames have the potential to increase energy expenditure and motivation in some children, it is less clear whether they can provide skill acquisition benefits that are similar to those found in traditional physical education.Purpose: In a previous experiment from our laboratory, we found that deliberate practice can significantly reduce the planning time required for lateral arm movements. The purpose of this study was to determine if exergames can produce a similar effect, by reducing the processing time required for children to initiate arm movements to the contralateral and ipsilateral space.Participants and setting: Thirty children (boys=15, girls=15), between the ages of 7 and 12 years, participated in a pre- and post-test each taking 30min and one 30min treatment session in a university laboratory.Research design: A repeated measures design was employed to test the effects of deliberate laterality practice on processing speed. Children were randomly assigned (n=10) to either a Nintendo Wii tennis contralateral movement experimental group, Nintendo Wii bowling ipsilateral movement experimental group, or handheld video-game control group. Each child participated in one 30min treatment session.Data collection: Upper extremity choice reaction time (RT) was measured through 27 goal-directed aiming movements for each arm separately, during the pre-test and post-test. The stimulus-response trials occurred in three randomly presented directions (ipsilateral, contralateral, and midline).Data analysis: A 3 (treatment group)x2 (age group)x2 (test)x3 (direction) mixed design analysis of variance with repeated measures on the last two factors was used to test for significant differences, with an alpha level set at 0.05.Findings: There were no significant treatment effects on RT across all groups indicating that a short bout of exergame training was unsuccessful in improving lateral movement processing.Conclusions: Deliberate laterality practice using exergames did not improve the motor processing speed of lateral arm movements in the same manner of traditional physical education as indicated by our previous research. Explanations as to why exergames do not exhibit the same positive transfer for skill acquisition as traditional physical education instruction are discussed within this paper.
Description:
Background: The advent of technology use in physical education is upon us. But the implications of using exergames as a substitute for traditional physical education instruction for some students raise questions. Although exergames have the potential to increase energy expenditure and motivation in some children, it is less clear whether they can provide skill acquisition benefits that are similar to those found in traditional physical education.Purpose: In a previous experiment from our laboratory, we found that deliberate practice can significantly reduce the planning time required for lateral arm movements. The purpose of this study was to determine if exergames can produce a similar effect, by reducing the processing time required for children to initiate arm movements to the contralateral and ipsilateral space.Participants and setting: Thirty children (boys=15, girls=15), between the ages of 7 and 12 years, participated in a pre- and post-test each taking 30min and one 30min treatment session in a university laboratory.Research design: A repeated measures design was employed to test the effects of deliberate laterality practice on processing speed. Children were randomly assigned (n=10) to either a Nintendo Wii tennis contralateral movement experimental group, Nintendo Wii bowling ipsilateral movement experimental group, or handheld video-game control group. Each child participated in one 30min treatment session.Data collection: Upper extremity choice reaction time (RT) was measured through 27 goal-directed aiming movements for each arm separately, during the pre-test and post-test. The stimulus-response trials occurred in three randomly presented directions (ipsilateral, contralateral, and midline).Data analysis: A 3 (treatment group)x2 (age group)x2 (test)x3 (direction) mixed design analysis of variance with repeated measures on the last two factors was used to test for significant differences, with an alpha level set at 0.05.Findings: There were no significant treatment effects on RT across all groups indicating that a short bout of exergame training was unsuccessful in improving lateral movement processing.Conclusions: Deliberate laterality practice using exergames did not improve the motor processing speed of lateral arm movements in the same manner of traditional physical education as indicated by our previous research. Explanations as to why exergames do not exhibit the same positive transfer for skill acquisition as traditional physical education instruction are discussed within this paper.
Surveying the landscape five years on : An examination of how teachers, and the teaching of Australia's shared-history, is constructed within Australian academic literature
Description:
The purpose of this paper is to conduct a literature review of academic debates relating to the Australian Curriculum: History (ACH), in particular subjective constructions of teachers, and the teaching of Australian History and Aboriginal peoples' and Torres Strait Islanders’ histories. The literature reviewed from a socio-political lens, examines functions of power/knowledge operating in discourses of education to illuminate how teachers, Aboriginal peoples, and Torres Strait Islanders, take up and/or resist subjectivities constructing them. Drawing from the toolbox of post-structuralism, this literature review troubles the notion of the non-Indigenous perspective as dominant, and the teacher as an active, non-critical participant in the process.
Description:
The purpose of this paper is to conduct a literature review of academic debates relating to the Australian Curriculum: History (ACH), in particular subjective constructions of teachers, and the teaching of Australian History and Aboriginal peoples' and Torres Strait Islanders’ histories. The literature reviewed from a socio-political lens, examines functions of power/knowledge operating in discourses of education to illuminate how teachers, Aboriginal peoples, and Torres Strait Islanders, take up and/or resist subjectivities constructing them. Drawing from the toolbox of post-structuralism, this literature review troubles the notion of the non-Indigenous perspective as dominant, and the teacher as an active, non-critical participant in the process.